


Hold it in, now let's go dancing

by Josephinemarche (Amodelofefficiency)



Category: Classic Alice (Web Series)
Genre: Alice being an overachieving Queen of everything, Andrew has hearteyes, F/M, the usual, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 02:17:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2564651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amodelofefficiency/pseuds/Josephinemarche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m abdicating,” she announces dramatically, face still pressed into the soft blankets at the foot of his bed. Andrew pauses a moment and watches her until her head slowly rises, eyes peeping over the end of his bed to peer at him. “Can I do that?” she finally asks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold it in, now let's go dancing

**Author's Note:**

> These two are causing me a lot of problems. Namely that I can't think about them without wanting to yell at their pretty perfect faces. Also I listened to a ridiculous amount of Alt-J on repeat while writing this. I can't explain. Taro gives me feelings.

Inspired by [this beautiful post](http://josephinemarche.tumblr.com/post/101741685826/thetaylorbaymanblog-from-imgfave-com)

* * *

 

 

 

_How’s studying going?_

 

**My nap was great, thanks for asking**

 

_ANDREW._

 

**What?**

 

 _Final exams are in_ six weeks.

 

**Thanks siri. I know**

 

_Fine. Don’t come to me two days before asking for notes._

 

**I wouldn’t dream of it**

 

* * *

 

 

There’s a knock at his door.

It’s almost four in the afternoon, his morning had been spent shuffling between classes and group work meetings involving disgruntled crew members and all Andrew wants to do is turn the covers over his shoulder, fall back to sleep and forget the film treatment, documentary, and history papers that are due in the following weeks.

He hadn’t even meant to check his phone, only the clock in his room has been stuck on 10:45 am since last April and he has tentative plans to meet friends for dinner later in the evening. The sun is already low in the sky and when he’d woken suddenly minutes earlier it had been to the horrible thought that he’d slept right through into the night, or even worse the following morning. He’d scrambled for his phone only to discover it had been two hours and Alice had spent her afternoon sending him various study related inquiries.

He’d responded instantly, almost automatically, and apparently scandalized her so deeply that she’d felt the need to apparate at his door.

“Andrew?”

He doesn’t bother to respond, instead double checks that he’s wearing pants and a shirt and then throws his bare feet to the carpet, trudging towards the door and opening it while scrolling through the group Facebook message that Alice had also rampaged.

“What are you doing next Thursday evening around five?”

“Why are you so invested in my education?”

They speak at the same time, Alice’s face screwing up comically in confusion as Andrew leans heavily against the doorframe and rubs idly at his eyes.

“Also how the fuck did you get here so fast?” he remembers to ask a second later. “I replied to you and then you went all Hermione on me and within a minute you were here. Are you _actually_ Hermione? Did you just,” and he snaps his fingers, “appear!”

“It’s app _arate_ , not app _ear_ – and _yes_ _I know what I just said_ ,” she stresses as he opens his mouth to point out the obvious.  

“Sometimes you’re very terrifying,” he whispers with a grin and Alice huffs impatiently.

“I was outside the building,” she finally tells him, eyeing a spot just passed his shoulder in a way he thinks might be her asking to come in. Her hair is curled, he notices, soft red almost ringlets falling around her shoulders and she looks flushed from braving the late Fall winds. The temperature keeps dropping and dropping and Andrew can feel the last few days before it snows slowly slipping away from them. Alice has a black scarf wrapped double around her neck and a stack of books and papers in her arms. Her eyes are watery from the cold and Andrew leans back casually, motioning her inside his room with a nod of his head.

“Did you freeze on the way?” he mutters as she ducks under his arm, but she ignores him in favor of dropping the book pile onto his bed before collapsing face first onto it herself.

“ _I_ was the one napping, not you,” he tells her, knocking his hand against her leg in passing.

“I’m abdicating,” she announces dramatically, face still pressed into the soft blankets at the foot of his bed. Andrew pauses a moment and watches her until her head slowly rises, eyes peeping over the end of his bed to peer at him. “Can I do that?” she finally asks.

Andrew pulls the chair from his desk closer to his bed and sits on the edge of it, leaning towards where Alice is still draped awkwardly over his blankets.

“I’m pretty sure you have to be a monarch to abdicate – and you didn’t actually win a kingdom.”

“You’re no help,” she sighs, and Andrew laughs quietly. “I’ll resign then. Or maybe run away. Is the circus hiring?”

“What the hell would you do in a circus? Recite poetry at them?”

“I could juggle,” she defends, and Andrew leans back in his chair, trying not to grin. It’s so very rare that Alice reaches a point of complete despondence. She’s passionate and capable and scarily well organized, but when she does reach a tipping point she doubles over into the abyss of gloom with the same fervor she dedicates to everything else in life, throwing out wild exclamations and dramatically declaring doom. For the casual bystander it would be quite unsettling, but Andrew and Cara find it hilarious, if not endearing. Alice at her wits end is so unlike everyday Alice that Andrew can’t help but enjoy it, safe in the knowledge that she’ll eventually spring back, possibly more terrifying than ever.

“I’m trying to juggle everything now,” she whispers into the blankets, “but I don’t think I can do this.”

Her words sober him a moment, and they’re both silent, Alice still and curled into herself on his bed and Andrew watching her closely from the side. He breathes in slowly, leaning further towards the bed so he can poke at Alice’s shoulder to try and rattle her into moving, but at the last moment he pauses, hand hovering somewhere between their norm and what he longs to do.

Instead he rests his warm hand on her shoulder and squeezes softly, hoping to rouse her. She makes a small noise in the back of her throat and Andrew pulls his hand back quickly, worried, only to watch her roll to the side and sit up slow.

Her hair is a mussed mess and her cheeks are still red from the cold and Andrew can’t help but frame her that way, forever calculating her lighting and movement. He has too many hours of Alice on video to separate her entirely from the constant film running in his head, but of late the film has been tripping him up – pitching images and scenes that he doesn’t remember scripting. He’s terrified that when she looks at him she can see it written all over his face, but Alice is busy picking at the corner of his blankets, trying to steady her breathing and collect her thoughts.

“I’ll make you a bet?” Andrew offers after a moment, and Alice can’t help the quick smile that flitters across her face. Bets are their friendship thing, a callback to the early days when they’d both been a little less understanding of each others character and a little too eager to prove themselves.  

“I bet that you can’t make it to the end of the year without messing this up. If I win, which we both know you’ll never allow, I get to take you to the winter ball in December.”

“And if I win?” Alice asks softly, eyeing him curiously and much too openly. He’s caught a second by something in her gaze, like she’s realized something beyond his familiar face and roguish smile, and it unsettles him to think what she might be seeing.

He clears his throat instead, heart hammering a little.

“If you win,” he tells her, “Well, you can decide. I’ll leave that up to you. Anything you want.”

“Anything?”

“Anything within very strict guidelines that I’ll be writing up this evening and sending to you by morning,” he amends; Alice and too much power could very well be the end of peaceful civilization – or at least the end of him.

She mulls over his words a moment and then nods, holding out a hand to shake. But as his hand slips with hers she pulls back a second, demanding, “Why don’t you just take me?”

Andrew stutters and falls silent, turning the phrase over in his mind.

“I mean why don’t you just take me to the ball,” she hastens to add, “forget the bet, and just ask me to go with you.”

He watches her closely, waiting for some catch, and Alice’s eyes go a little wide as her words tumble over.

“I’m going to be busy making sure everything runs smoothly so it’s not like I’ll have time to take an actual date, if I could even find one, which I won’t. And this way I won’t have to go alone, and I’ll still be able to spend all my available time with you and Cara and Lily, and I know you won’t just disappear on me at the end of the night because somehow you keep ending up with me then anyway, even when we weren’t going together and -“

“Okay.”

He interrupts her so abruptly that Alice is caught mid word, still fighting to explain herself. It’s not a date, they’re both rather emphatic about that, but it feels more natural than anything else Alice has done and suggested in weeks, and it makes the knot in Andrew’s stomach loosen slightly.

“Anyway, it’s not like I need a bet with you to push me to handle this. I can handle this. If anyone can handle this, _it’s_ _me_ ,” she suddenly announces, Alice Lucy Rackham returning with a blaze.

She stands and collects her books and papers, and as she steps towards the door Andrew realizes with a start that she’s leaving. It feels wrong somehow, like she should still be all over his space, but it’s getting late and he _does_ have a treatment to write and some of the guys on his level have been pestering him about having drinks for weeks. If Alice stays any longer he’s terrified he’ll be even less inclined to eventually let her go.

She’s out the door in seconds, but Andrew still takes the time to call after her, “you seriously need to see someone about this Hermione thing. I’m concerned. Not just for my own safety but for the safety of the student population at large –“

“You’re just afraid that makes you Ron, Prichard,” she calls back over her shoulder, and disappears around the corner before he has a chance to respond.

He shuts the door firmly behind him and heads back to bed, collapsing face first into the mattress like Alice had only minutes earlier.

“At least they get together in the end,” he mutters.

 

* * *

 

**You never told me why I needed to be free on Thursday night?**

 

_Oh! Yeah. Filming?_

 

**That’s a little early in the week?**

 

_What part of neck deep in study and politics do you not understand?_

 

**Um, all of it?**

 

_Whatever. Goodnight._

 

**Goodnight Alice.**

 

 

 


End file.
